That should have scared me.
It did.
It also burned through me in a way I had no category for.
Roman noticed from the crease. I felt it every time his mask turned my way. Tessa noticed too, standing near the tunnel with her tablet, media lanyard around her neck, eyes too sharp for a woman pretending to check practice clips. Milo definitely noticed something. He kept shooting looks at me, then at Declan, then back at me like he was trying to solve a math problem with missing numbers.
Nobody knew what.
I barely knew what.
Halfway through a neutral zone drill, Declan blew the whistle and pointed at me.
“You’re cheating high.”
I stopped hard, spray kicking up. “I’m reading the lane.”
“You’re leaving Lowell exposed.”
“I had the step.”
“You had a gamble.”
I felt heat crawl up my neck. Guys coasted in, listening even while pretending not to. “That’s not a gamble if I win the puck.”
“And when you don’t?”
“But I did.”
Declan stepped onto the ice from the boards, not far, just enough that the entire group shifted attention. His voice didn’t rise.
“We’re not building the system around your best-case scenario.”
My fingers flexed around my stick. “So you want me passive.”
“I want you responsible.”
A few skates scraped. Someone coughed. My ears filled with static.
“I know what I saw,” I said.
Declan’s gaze stayed on me, steady and unforgiving. “And I know what I asked for.”
That was it. Not cruel. Not loud. Not humiliating.
Worse.
Simple.
A line laid down in front of everyone.
My teeth pressed together hard enough to ache.
For one stupid second, I wanted to push again just to see what he would do. Wanted to force his hand, force that controlled voice lower, force the calm to crack. The impulse hit bright andreckless, and I had to grip my stick with both hands to keep it from becoming action.
Declan waited.
Not long.
